Life Drawing

Foundation, SW, life drawing trio

Life Drawing

One of the most challenging and compelling of all Western art traditions — drawing the human figure, is presented in this sequenced course. The figure is one of the most complex natural forms, and serves well as a model of nature itself in drawing. The curriculum provides instruction in gesture, structure, visual relationships, and mark-making using observation from a live model each week. Traditional methods of analytical figure drawing are taught — gesture, anatomy, measurement and transparency. Students learn to use devices for perceptual development such as axis lines, the plumb line, head counts, surface landmarks, planar analysis, and ellipses. Throughout the year, these lessons accumulate to provide the perceptual, intellectual, and manual skills needed to make strong, lifelike figure drawings that embody a sense of personal vision through individual mark-making. Students may take Creative Practices and Responses in second semester, rather than Life Drawing II.

Resources:

Digitally Photographing 2D Art with Chris Warner (video)

Gesture Drawing with Chris Warner (video)

Planar Head Portrait Drawing with Gary Geraths (video)

Portrait Drawing with Gary Geraths (video)

Structural Life Drawing with Gary Geraths (video)

Process drawings at faculty member Gary Gerath's Animal Drawing site